April 29, 2011

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Your editorial on oil prices and drilling ("Beware the snake oil sales pitch," April 26) is disingenuous at best. While your points on the amount of available domestic oil and the development of alternative energy are valid, you fail to mention the minimal potential for alternative energy over the next 10 years. My recollection is that alternative energy would produce less than 5 percent of the needed energy in that period, and anecdotally, consumer interest (or lack thereof) in electric cars speaks volumes.

Why not make a complete argument rather than shill for an agenda that is only costing citizens more? When we encourage Brazil to drill with the promise of purchasing their oil, yet hamstring domestic oil production (and by the way, creation of jobs), it sends a message that the agenda is one-sided. Why not develop domestic oil resources and take the requisite taxes and use them to develop alternative energy sources at a faster rate than the free market will since the free market knows alternative energy is inefficient and costly at this point?